Tennessee Nanotech Alliance™

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Welcome to the Tennessee Nanotech Alliance™

Welcome to the offical website blog of the Tennessee Nanotech Alliance™

Mission

The mission of the Tennessee Nanotech Alliance (TNA) is to create a collaborative effort across the State of Tennessee to identify the emerging opportunities and address the challenges of nanotechnology.

Objectives

The objectives of the TNA are five-fold:

1. Education: Educating the public, media, academics, business, and elected officials is key to a successful statewide nanotechnology strategy.

2. Promotion: By creating synergies across the State of Tennessee and a collaborative environment, awareness of nanotech initiatives will increase. As the single point of contact for Tennessee’s emerging presence in the nanotechnology arena, TNA will be a key leader, driver, and facilitator in promoting nanotechnology for the State.

3. Research: The state of Tennessee has unique advanced research capabilities located in industry, universities, laboratories, research centers, and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). This research will result in opportunities to establish modern manufacturing methodologies, new product and solution development, manufacturing principles, and new avenues of commerce.

4. Manufacturing: Advanced materials, modern manufacturing principles and processes, and the workforce of the future are needed for Tennessee to emerge as a key nanotechnology state.

5. Business: Creating new businesses that leverage the power of nanotechnology and transforming existing businesses into organizations that have nanotechnology at their core will become vital to Tennessee’s economy and future competitive rankings.

Leadership

Founders: The founders of the TNA are Bill and Margaret Johns, each of whom are nanotechnology business leaders and Tennessee residents. Each recognized the immediate need to establish a statewide nanotech alliance for Tennessee. While working for technology companies in 1998, they witnessed the emerging world of nanotechnology becoming mainstream, especially in the semiconductor industry. In 2001, they started to work more with nanotechnology based companies. In addition, they saw the unique capabilities of organizations in Tennessee, especially The University of Tennessee at Knoxville, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and other organizations dealing with advanced materials, biotechnology, sensors, energy, and complex manufacturing. In 2003, they proposed the formation of a statewide nanotech alliance, but did not start implementing the TNA until early 2004. During this time period, they began working with Small Times Media and attended NanoTech 2004, NanoBusiness 2004, and NanoCommerce 2004.